News

Television: AA Gill: Stars are wasted on these arch Angels

It is a passing truth of broadcasting that any job in television has to be offered to Melvyn first. All those sit-vac appointments in the Media Guardian on Mondays should really read: “If Melvyn doesn’t want to do this, then the rest of you can apply.

Preference will be given to liberal northerners with the common touch for high culture and a good head of hair.”

Naturally, Melvyn is on the wish list to take over all the vacant hara-kiri Hutton jobs at the BBC, even though, a few years ago, he was enthusiastically campaigning for the abolition of the licence fee. Presumably, it was because Melvyn wasn’t available that Channel 4 settled for the man who made Pizza Express a stock-market success and owns The Ivy as its chairman. Luke Johnson is Paul Johnson’s son, and a less likely television executive you couldn’t imagine, outside of Sesame Street. But